Sylvara Moonwhisper wanted to unite her people, but she could not find them. She stood on the deck of her treetop home, palm pressed to the smooth wooden rail. Below, the forest stretched dark and endless. Somewhere out there, dozens of brown-skinned elf clans hid in caves and hollows and river bends. War had scattered them. Sylvara meant to gather them under one high seat, hers. But she could not call a council of ghosts. She did not know where a single clan had settled. She had a map of the old villages. Every one was empty now. She had sent scouts for a season. They came back with nothing but tired feet. A bell of copper chimes clinked against her ladder. Someone was climbing up. Rajan Mirza reached the top step and grunted, hauling a sack of spice tins over his shoulder. He was a traveling trader, short and broad, his beard black as pitch. She had bought saffron from him twice. She had never trusted him. "You look like a queen with an empty court," he said. He set the sack down and rubbed his back. "I know that look. I sell to empty courts." "I have no coin for talk," Sylvara said. "Then hear this for free." He unrolled a strip of oiled cloth on her table. It held pinch-marks and tiny stains. "A trader goes where the buyers are. I sold pepper to your people last month. Three clans. All hiding. I remember every door I knock on." Sylvara's chest tightened. "You know where they are." "I know where three are." He tapped the cloth. "The rest? Deeper in. I don't go where the roads end." Three was not enough. She needed all of them. But three was a start, and starts were currency now. "Show me the roads that do end," she said. "I'll send my own eyes past them." She crossed to the window and opened a woven cage. A swarm of glowing insects poured out, their bodies flickering gold and green. They clustered into a long, shining shape, like a serpent stitched from lanterns. Rajan stepped back and swore. "Search the deep hollows," Sylvara told the swarm. "Find my people. Bring back the shape of the land." The lights spilled off the deck and vanished into the trees. Rajan named the three clans and their hidden paths. Sylvara marked each one. By dawn, the firefly swarm returned. It settled on her map and glowed over seven new points, deep in the far woods. Seven more clans. Ten in all. She finally knew where her people were. Then Rajan tapped one glowing mark near the mountains. "That one," he said. "That clan burned my wagon and took my mule. They bow to no one. You'll want an army before you knock." Sylvara stared at the light. She had found her people at last. Now she had to reach them, and one of them already wanted her dead.